English Partsongs

The repertoire on this BBC Music mag cover disk is quite unusual, even if the composers are familiar enough. It features the BBC Singers in partsongs by Elgar, Delius and Holst. The Elgar and Delius songs are acapella, with solo contributions from oboist Richard Simpson cellist Susan Monks and harpist Sioned Williams on various of the Holst songs. Conductor for the Holst is Justin Doyle, while Stephen Cleobury directs the Elgar and Delius. There are just a few moments on the disk when the sound of the BBC Singers gets a little too close to a kind of barber's shop sound for my taste but most of the time it is suited to the material, which does have a kind of English pastoral feel without being cliched in that regard. I found the Holst songe particularly interesting, being based on old English and Welsh carols and folk songs and also on the writings of the Rig Veda, although the latter betray no real musical sense of India or the orient. A low key disk but a strangely attractive one.